Ahead of festive season, September GST collections cross Rs 1 lakh cr

The states which achieved "extraordinary growth" in total taxes collected include Kerala (44 per cent), Jharkhand (20 per cent), Rajasthan (14 per cent), Uttarakhand (13 per cent) and Maharashtra (11 per cent), an official statement said. 

GST collections in October crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark, after a gap of 5 months, on the back of festive demand, anti-evasion measures. 

The finance ministry said on Thursday that 67.45 lakh businesses filed goods and services tax (GST) returns in October and deposited Rs 1,00,710 crore as taxes. 

"GST collections for October 2018 have crossed Rs 1 lakh crore. The success of GST is lower rates, lesser evasion, higher compliance, only one tax and negligible interference by taxation authorities," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tweeted. 

The states which achieved "extraordinary growth" in total taxes collected include Kerala (44 per cent), Jharkhand (20 per cent), Rajasthan (14 per cent), Uttarakhand (13 per cent) and Maharashtra (11 per cent), an official statement said. 

GST revenue had first crossed the landmark figure in April when the collections were Rs 1,03,458 crore. Since then collections have maintained above Rs 90,000 crore mark. 

The collections stood at Rs 94,016 crore in May, Rs 95,610 crore in June, Rs 96,483 crore in July, Rs 93,960 crore in August and Rs 94,442 crore in September. 

Of the Rs 1 lakh crore total gross GST revenue collected in October, central GST is Rs 16,464 crore, state GST is Rs 22,826 crore, IGST is Rs 53,419 crore (including Rs 26,908 crore collected on imports) and cess is Rs. 8,000 crore. 

The October revenue collections reflect the purchase and sales activities conducted in the month of September. 

The government has settled Rs 17,490 crore to CGST and Rs 15,107 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. 

Further, Rs 30,000 crore has been settled from the balance IGST available with the Centre on provisional basis in the ratio of 50:50 between centre and states. 

"The total revenue earned by central government and the state governments after regular and provisional settlement in the month of October, 2018, is Rs 48,954 crore for CGST and Rs 52,934 crore for the SGST, the statement added. 

Deloitte India Partner M S Mani said, "It appears that GST collections have turned the tide and the increased collections would be on account of the stabilisation of GST processes and the anti-evasion measures taken. The fact that September heralds the festive season has also helped in improving collections." 

EY Tax Partner Abhishek Jain said that while a possible reason for an upsurge in September could be fiscal 2017-18 closing adjustments, this trend could be expected to continue with implementation of anti-evasion measures like TDS/TCS." 

Photograph: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters.